“Backrooms,” “Obsession” and How Movies (And You) Change With Age

Every generation thinks the next one is wrong. And vice versa.

Roger Ebert has been — remains, really — my role model and writing hero since I was a preteen, someone who thought of the act of living as almost an art: He was, to the very end, engaged and active in this world, constantly trying to make sense of it, always writing his way through, distilling, even purifying, his thoughts through constant reflection and incessant, relentless work. (I would end up of course having a personal history with Roger as well.) He was one of those writers who I respected so much that when he wrote something I disagreed with, it made me reassess my own beliefs, triple-check myself to make sure I’d thought it through entirely. Every single word I write has a little bit of Ebert in it.

But I will never forget the time when he struck me as helplessly old and out of touch.

It was his review of Reality Bites, the 1994 Ben Stiller-directed movie starring Ethan Hawke and Winona Ryder (and Steve Zahn and Janeane Garofalo) as Gen-X slacker kids trying to find their way through their listless but still hopeful twenties. I was 18 years old when Reality Bites came out, a freshman at the University of Illinois, and I thought the movie captured real, deep truths about…